The Significance of Functional Medicine.

More news to share today regarding the clinical significance of Functional Medicine (FM) as seen in this cohort study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). According to the study findings, FM patients “exhibited significantly larger improvements in Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System

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Global Physical Health at 6 months than propensity-matched patients at a family health center.”
 
So what does that mean for all of us? Well, it definitively shows that employing Functional Medicine approaches may truly improve global health in patients!
 
In order to treat patients it is imperative that we incorporate all aspects of health and wellness for their optimal outcomes. And if we address the root causes of disease, which is the very core of FM, it is quite possible that we can dramatically change the course of destiny for these patients. We only have to look at the statistics of disease occurrence, including neurodegenerative disease, to know that we must do something different if we are to change these figures and the lives of patients:
 
- 54% of children now have a chronic disease 
- 60% of adults have one and 40% have two chronic diseases .  
- 1 in 5 Americans gets autoimmune disease 
- 1 in 33 born with autism with projections for this to be one in two in the next 15 years 
- 50 million individuals suffer with neuro-psychiatric problems 
- Every day 43 children (ages?) are diagnosed with cancer  
- 100 million people are living with unremitting chronic pain
- 1 in 150 children with PANS and PANDAS (an autoimmune brain disease )  
- And a rising tide of every other neurodegenerative disease  
 
In 2018 alone, we spent 3 trillion dollars on health care. The numbers are staggering and the impact could easily bankrupt our country within the next decade. We must look to other options and integrating innovative approaches to treating patients. Perhaps Functional medicine is part of the solution – I certainly believe it is.  
 
In health,
Dr. Suzy Gazda